FestivalsIrelandReview

Content – Project Arts Centre, Dublin Theatre Festival 2024

Reviewer: Milly Burke Cunningham

Writer: Ross Dungan

Director: Sara Joyce

Alan, a young man working in content moderation, is troubled by a misjudged comment he made to his co-worker Alannah when she discovered a video of her brother’s suicide at work. Their work lives consist of sifting through images of mangled body parts, racist content and spam. Aidan Moriarty gives a standout performance as the obnoxious supervisor, his character is written perfectly – we’ve all known one just like him.

Alan and Alannah are a mismatched pair (the dynamic of acerbic woman with sweet man who accepts the abuse from her is grating) who begin a quest to discover the social media user who’s encouraging people to end their lives. Within this dynamic, Genevieve Hulme-Beaman’s Alannah consistently makes jokes that fall like lead balloons both with Alan and the audience. Ross Dungan’s attempts to intersperse black humour (which the content moderation world is full of) with the drama doesn’t work well here. Committing to it as a drama entirely would’ve been stronger.

As a former content moderator, I was curious to discover how this piece would depict the work. I recognised certain aspects: the search for early houses in an attempt to block out the images, the eventual deadening of any reaction to the work, the drudgery of staring at screens. However the second half of the play veers off in a direction I still haven’t figured out.

A story within this story is the relationship between Alan and his mother, which was the strongest point of the play. Dungan’s writing shines here and Joshua McEneaney and Janet Moran create touching vignettes together, which further highlights the cold atmosphere of the work environment. The intriguing set by Ciaran Bagnall, combined with Sinead Diskin’s hypnotic sound design created a strong impression.

The play, which runs long at 2 hours 35 minutes (with interval, thankfully), was unfortunately poorly sculpted, it didn’t feel like a comprehensible whole. I found myself wondering what is the point of this play? Particularly in the second half, it felt like the piece was rushing towards something but with no momentum in the audience’s mind. Also, it must be said, there should’ve been a warning about the creepy kangaroo, I found myself flinching whenever it appeared.

Overall, the play has strong performances with some thought-provoking elements that were, despite the lengthy duration of the play, not teased out satisfyingly.

Runs Until 19th October 2024.

The Review's Hub Score

Unfinished

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The Ireland team is currently under the editorship of Laura Marriott. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.

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